The purpose of this study is to develop a framework to explain the relationship between cultural codes of honor, shame, purity, and pollution and two ritual practices associated with female sexuality at puberty and marriage: virginity tests and female genital mutilations. A theory has been developed in the proposal that describes the economic, political, and social determinant of these codes and rituals, specifically the economic resources controlled by a social group, strength of fraternal interest groups (family solidarity), and frequency and intensity of feuding and psychological warfare. The study involves two related projects. First, the study will test the theoretical model empirically on a cross-cultural sample of 114 societies. The measures of each variable in the model will be measured by content analysis of the principal ethnographic sources for each society and the pattern of association between the measures will be examined statistically. Second, the extent to which aggregate world patterns established in the cross-cultural study reflect the social dynamics of a single society will be investigated through preliminary fieldwork in two locations in Egypt. The results should help explain world patterns in female sexual rituals and their psychological and medical consequences.